<logic, philosophy of science, linguistics> the customary significance attached to the use of a word, phrase, or sentence, including both its literal sense and its emotive associations; what is elucidated in a definition. Philosophical theories of meaning endeavor to explain the conditions under which an expression comes to have internal significance and external reference. Recommended Reading: A. W. Moore, Meaning and Reference (Oxford, 1993); Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Harvard, 1991); The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism, ed. by I. A. Richards and C. K. Ogden (Harvest, 1989); Truth and Meaning: Essays in Semantics, ed. by Gareth Evans and John McDowell (Oxford, 2000); and Gilles Fauconnier, Eve Sweetser, and George Lakoff, Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural Language (Cambridge, 1994).
[A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names]
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